The group “San Juan” is located in a very beautiful community, characterized by its very friendly residents. They are very hardworking people. The main activities are making handicrafts from plaster. There are also many businesses with industrial waste and selling pots to make piñatas in the month of December, which are also handmade.

The group “San Juan” is made up of eight members. All are very enterprising women. Each of them has a productive business. For this reason, they are requesting a loan from Kiva and VisionFund in order to invest in their businesses.

Sandra will invest in jewelry, Fulgencia and Rosenda will buy corn for their tortilla business, Yolanda will invest in buckets and barrels, Yolanda in fabric for quilts, Yunuen in computer equipment, Rocío in selling quilts and linens, and Magdalena will invest in her stationary shop.

Teresa is a representative of the group. She was the one who decided on the group’s name, and she chose it because this is the name of the patron saint of the community. She has great faith in him, and she asked for a lot of strength in order to get her group ahead. They have been with this organization for many loan cycles.

Tere (Teresa) is 51 years old. She has been married for 31 years to Santos. Together, they had a family of five daughters, one of whom is dependent on the pair of them.

Tere has worked selling cosmetics and perfumes by catalog for 30 years. She says that she started her work because she really enjoyed the interaction with people, but also out of necessity, because her expenses are high, and she decided in some way to help out with the household costs.

She has also had a stationary shop for six years now; she began this because previously, she had a restaurant. Her children were the ones who helped her to run it, but after a while this was impossible; this then motivated her to start her stationary shop.

This time, she is requesting a loan to purchase more beauty products. She needs her loan because she works with various brands. Tere has a lot of experience selling cosmetics; however, her challenge is getting involved with more brands in order to be able to expand her number of customers.

Tere’s goal is to be able to see her daughter who is studying at the university become a professional. Tere is very proud of her daughters, because although they no longer support her with her business, they do help her financially.

Additional Information

This is a Group Loan

In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a larger group of individuals. The group is there to provide support to the members and to provide a system of peer pressure, but groups may or may not be formally bound by a group guarantee. In cases where there is a group guarantee, members of the group are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members in the case of delinquency or default.

Kiva's Field Partners typically feature one borrower from a group. The loan description, sector, and other attributes for a group loan profile are determined by the featured borrower's loan. The other members of the group are not required to use their loans for the same purpose.